Kambol (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). 26/11/2008: Curtains used for proceedings in camera, shown during a mock trial organised by the ECCC defence section for law students
©John Vink/ MagnumKa-set
http://cambodia.ka-set.info/
By Stéphanie Gée
21-05-2009
Yet another morning with no hearing for the audience at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal on Thursday May 21st. From the outset, the Trial Chamber announced its intention to hold a trial management meeting between the parties, to which neither the public nor the civil parties were admitted. Before lunch break, the curtains opened and the president of the court announced that the defence recognised as an expert American Craig Etcheson, who was on the stand since Monday, and did not contest his report, “Overview of the Hierarchy of Democratic Kampuchea”, which provides the basis for his testimony. On the previous days, the international co-lawyer of Duch had disturbed the substantial debate by contesting the amount of documents in connection with the expert's testimony that had been produced in the hearing as well as his current professional status...
The president concluded that “consequently, it [was] not necessary to read each annexed document,” as the international co-Prosecutor had started doing on the previous day. The Chamber considered the documents in annexes as being integral parts of the expert's report. When the debate resumed at 1.30pm, François Roux, French co-lawyer for the accused, specified the defence's position on the issue, saying he “indeed agreed to consider that all these documents come in support of the report and that these documents and report will be debated and added to the case file.”
However, Roux continued, “the defence insists on the fact that after July 2007, Craig Etcheson was directly involved in the prosecution against the accused and in these conditions, his testimony as expert must not deal with the period after July 2007” or the documents he had hold of beyond that date, when his report was written but also when Duch was indicted. He recalled that the American then already worked as an investigator with the office of the co-Prosecutors of the tribunal and was therefore a party to the trial.
Civil parties do not want to be excluded from the proceedings in camera
Following him, Silke Studzinsky, one of the lawyers for civil party group 2, took the floor to express the civil parties' complaints about their exclusion from the morning debates and their wish to participate in the proceedings in camera in the future. She argued that the accused was authorised to stay and participate to the meeting and called to the principle of fairness. After recalling that “the rights of the accused and the rights of civil parties are not identical”, Roux supported, in the name of the defence, the request of his colleague, considering that “wherever possible, civil parties must be authorised to participate to meetings, after reminding them that, as these are proceedings in camera, they have a duty of confidentiality.”
Short review of the CPK throughout its congresses
The co-Prosecutors resumed the examination of the expert witness, with questions aimed to paint a general picture of Democratic Kampuchea and its ruling structure, the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK). The national deputy co-Prosecutor invited Craig Etcheson to review the five congresses held by the party. “At the 1960 congress, about twenty people met and created an organisation they named the Workers' Party of Kampuchea. They elected a Central Committee comprising 8 to 10 individuals, which elected Tou Samouth as secretary general of the party and Nuon Chea as deputy secretary.” The first stage consisted in the implementation of a political programme. “At the 1963 congress, Tou Samouth had been assassinated in the meantime and the party elected Saloth Sar, later known as Pol Pot, as secretary while Nuon Chea remained deputy secretary of the party. Other members were added to the Central Committee as well as the Standing Committee. At the 1971 congress, they decided to change the name of the party, which became the Communist Party of Kampuchea and plans were drawn with the view to achieve national liberation. In 1976, at the fourth party congress, the CPK had seized power at the national level and had progressed well in its plans to secure State power under a dictatorship of the proletariat. It had also moved ahead in its plans to achieve a radical transformation of the Cambodian society. At the same congress, the party adopted new statutes […]. At the fifth party congress, in 1978, the party appointed zone secretaries to replace the many zone secretaries who had been purged, given the series of purges carried out in the two previous years, and that was the main activity of that congress.”
A dictatorship that speaks not its name
Shortly afterwards, Craig Etcheson commented that Democratic Kampuchea could be considered as a forced labour camp in light of the inhumane living conditions that prevailed. In terms of sanctions, “the policy decided by the higher echelon constantly changed. It was therefore not really possible to know the meaning of 'opposition to the popular State', an offence punishable by detention in a re-education camp. In this regard, the discipline exercised within the State of Democratic Kampuchea could be extremely arbitrary.”
As for the People's Representative Assembly, which was to be elected once every five years by direct suffrage and secret vote, in accordance with the Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea, it was only a façade, the expert explained. “Actually, the 250 members of the Assembly were appointed by the higher echelon of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Unlike a regular legislative body in another State, the Assembly did not meet regularly, adopted no laws, and does not seem to have fulfilled any function apart from serving as a propaganda tool in defending the international image of Democratic Kampuchea.”
Sovereign independence to achieve a model revolution
Next, Craig Etcheson reviewed one of the founding principles promoted by the CPK, that of the “mastery of independence, which broadly defined a set of autarchy concepts. The CPK leaders considered that their revolution was unique and there was therefore no need to seek advice or draw from other previous communist revolutions. These individuals, who were CPK members, believed that the previous revolutions had failed because they had not succeeded in destroying the oppressing classes within society: the capitalists, the bourgeois and the feudal classes. Thus, Democratic Kampuchea's revolution was determined to wipe out these classes in their totality to realise a State based entirely on workers and peasants, through the total elimination of the other social classes by transforming little bourgeois into peasants and by thereby transforming society instantaneously to achieve pure communism. This concept of social transformation totally ignored the general history of communist theory, from Marx to Engels, including Lenin, Stalin, Mao and other great communist thinkers. However, the CPK leaders were convinced that, through this concept of sovereign independence, which included the severance of relations with the outside world, they could achieve a revolution and make it a model for the world.”
The concept of “purity”
Quoting Article 1 of the CPK statutes on the criteria for party membership – which states that members “must have good morals and be politically good and pure, and never have had any involvement with the enemy”, Craig Etcheson explained that this “related to a concept designated by the Khmer Rouge under the term of 'purity'.” He illustrated the concept with an example related to S-21: Duch recruited as S-21 staff young boys in the district of Kampong Tralach, Kampong Chhnang province, which has always been one of the poorest and most disadvantaged regions of central Cambodia. “In my opinion, he chose them because they originated from the poorest peasant class, which was favoured by the Khmer Rouge revolution, and because, as they came from an isolated and poor region, there was more chance they had been preserved from foreign, urban, capitalist or feudal influences. In some way, they had pure biographies. […] It was therefore about the concept of purity under the Khmer Rouge, which was related to class origins.”
Standing Committee meetings
The review of Democratic Kampuchea continued with the international deputy Prosecutor, Alex Bates, who interrogated the expert witness on the meetings of the CPK Standing Committee. If the majority of participants were Committee members, several other members, held up far away from Phnom Penh due to their responsibilities as zone secretaries, were unable to attend the meetings frequently. Khieu Samphan, although he was not a member, participated to these meetings often, according to recovered meeting minutes. “If I remember clearly, only Nuon Chea, Standing Committee member, attended the meetings more often than Khieu Samphan. Frequently, senior cadres of zones, ministries or military units were invited to the meetings of the Standing Committee to report on the situation and receive instructions from the Standing Committee.” The range of topics discussed were those usually managed by an executive body.
The training of cadres
Craig Etcheson then discussed the party training school, “an institution where party cadres were indoctrinated”, he recalled. “That is where they were taught the party line. Sessions were regularly organised for the cadres of all structures in Democratic Kampuchea, not just the central level, but also cadres of zones, sectors, districts, etc, so that each could be informed of the party line. These sessions were often conducted by Nuon Chea and/or Khieu Samphan.” At the same time, there were regular reunions organised by the party at the Olympic Stadium, which seemed to fulfil a function similar to that of the party training school but on a larger scale” and gathered as many groups of cadres as combatants, and which were attended by the whole Standing Committee, according to footage of these events.
“The most disastrous political decision” taken by the Khmer Rouge
Following a visit to the North-West of the country in August 1975, the Standing Committee concluded that numerous fields could be exploited there for rice production. Consequently, it decided that half a million people must be transferred there to be placed in agricultural cooperatives, Craig Etcheson later detailed. Shortly afterwards, people from Phnom Penh and urban centres (“the new people”) were displaced in mass to the North-West, where they found themselves in “land that was little fertile in the middle of nowhere, with no shelter, no food, no clothes or tools, and were told: you are going to grow rice. That was probably the most disastrous political decision taken under Democratic Kampuchea.” This displacement of population resulted in the death of tens of thousands of people, who died of hunger, illness or exhaustion.
Strictly vertical communications
The expert then stated that as a general rule throughout the administrative, political and military organisations of Democratic Kampuchea, communication was strictly vertical, thereby echoing statements previously made by the accused. “For instance, if two individuals in charge of adjacent sectors in separate zones had to discuss, instead of communicating directly, horizontally, the one with the other, they had to contact the chiefs of their zones and the party centre, which acted, if I may say, as a kind of telephone switchboard for the whole organisation. Thus, the party centre was the only body that knew what was happening everywhere in the country.” Craig Etcheson insisted that vertical communication excluded any horizontal communication, “considered as an act of treason”, and that the imperative was implemented even more strictly in the military organisations.
Prosecutor Alex Bates then interrogated the expert about the place of S-21 in these communication networks and the answers tended to exonerate Duch. For instance, on the military level, everything had to go through Son Sen, deputy Prime Minister for national defence, chief of staff and member of the military committee of the party centre. “Therefore, the accused had to report to the top of the CPK hierarchy, then through the intervention of Son Sen, cooperate with divisions to help and proceed to what became a large scale purge within the military.”
The examination of the witness interrupted
At 5pm, the hearing was adjourned. The president thanked Craig Etcheson for his patience. Although his examination is not over yet, another witness will take his place on Monday and Tuesday, Nayan Chanda, former Indian correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review and author of several books on political issues in Asia. He will be heard on the issue of the armed conflict between Cambodia and Vietnam. The judge explained the schedule cannot be reviewed, as the expert does not reside in Phnom Penh and has other commitments. The Trial Chamber invited the American to return to finish his testimony “at a later date”, with no further details...
